ch they exert." It is quite true that I do so.

"Well, but," I am told at once, somewhat triumphantly, "you say in the
same breath that there is a great moral and intellectual chasm between
man and the lower animals. How is this possible when you declare that
moral and intellectual characteristics depend on structure, and yet tell
us that there is no such gulf between the structure of man and that of
the lower animals?"

I think that objection is based upon a misconception of the real
relations which exist between structure and function, between
mechanism and work. Function is the expression of molecular forces and
arrangements no doubt; but, does it follow from this, that variation
in function so depends upon variation in structure that the former is
always exactly proportioned to the latter? If there is no such relation,
if the variation in function which follows on a variation in structure,
may be enormously greater than the variation of the structure, then, you
see, the objection falls to the ground.

Take a couple of watches--made by the same maker, and as completely
alike as possible; set them upon the table, and the function of
each--which is its rate of going--will be performed in the same manner,
and you shall be able to distinguish no difference between them; but let
me take a pair of pincers, and if my hand is steady enough to do it,
let me just lightly crush together the bearings of the balance-wheel, or
force to a slightly different angle the teeth of the escapement of one
of them, and of course you know the immediate result will be that
the watch, so treated, from that moment will cease to go. But what
proportion is there between the structural alteration and the functional
result? Is it not perfectly obvious that the alteration is of the
minutest kind, yet that slight as it is, it has produced an infinite
difference in the performance of the functions of these two instruments?

Well, now, apply that to the present question. What is it that
constitutes and makes man what he is? What is it but his power
of language--that language giving him the means of recording
his experience--making every generation somewhat wiser than its
predecessor,--more in accordance with the established order of the
universe?

What is it but this power of speech, of recording experience, which
enables men to be men--looking before and after and, in some dim
sense, understanding the working of this wondrous universe--and which